The company has signed a memorandum of agreement with Reservoir Sun to provide solar power for the satellite ground station at Bercenay-en-Othe, 125km south-east of Paris.
Michaël Trabbia, interim CEO for Orange Wholesale and International Networks since September 2022, said: “We are happy and proud to launch an ambitious local solar farm project at our Bercenay-en-Othe site.
The solar station is due to go online in 2025, said Orange. It will be the company’s first solar farm in Europe, and will cover an area of 50,000m2.
The power station will generate 5MW, of which 1MW will be used by Orange on the site. The power station will supply 20% of the site’s energy needs and surplus electricity can be fed back to the grid, said the company.
This locally generated, low-carbon electricity corresponds to the annual energy consumption of 1,700 homes and will save over 100 tons of CO2 every year, the company added.
Trabbia said: “This solar farm reflects our additionality approach and is fully in line with our strategy to develop the use of low-carbon energies, in order to contribute to our environmental commitments. This project thus contributes to securing our energy supply while decarbonizing our activities.”
Mathieu Cambet, managing director of Marseille-based Reservoir Sun, said: “We hope that this shared project will mark the start of a strong collaboration to take on the challenges of decarbonization and local energy production.”
